And, if she had ever been reproached about her colossal selfishness, she would have looked up astonished, and replied: "Well, who is nearer to oneself than oneself ?" Common sense like this is not to be controverted.
It would only be when she was growing old that she would feel the loneliness of knowing that, apart from the passion which she had inspired because of her sex and her beauty, not a single human being had ever loved her.

For the present she was Venus Victrix, a glorious creature, the desired of men--and that was enough.
Mr.Hanbury-Green was a forceful person, unhampered by any of the instincts of a gentleman, and therefore armed with a number of weapons for winning his battles.

He had determined to rise to the top upon the wave of class hatred which he had been clever enough to create, and he neither knew nor cared to what state of devastation he might bring the country.

He was a fitting mate in every way for Cecilia Cricklander, and completely equipped to play with her at her own game.
So, when they met in her sitting-room in the Florentine hotel, each experienced a pleasurable emotion.
His was tempered--or augmented--by a blunt and sufficiently brutal passion, which only the ideal of circumspect outward conduct which dominates the non-conformist lower middle classes, from which he had sprung, kept him from demonstrating, by seizing his desired prize in his arms.
He was frankly in love, and meant to leave no stone unturned to oust John Derringham from his position as _fiance_ of the lady--John Derringham, whom he hated from the innermost core of his heart! Mrs.Cricklander fenced with him admirably.

She did not need Arabella's coachings in her dealings with him; he was quite uncultured, and infinitely more appreciated what her old father had been used to call her "horse sense" than he would have done her finest rhapsody upon Nietzsche.